A re you familiar with this Cross Platform chat client named “InstantBird”? If not, then probably you have missed some great source of enter...

Are you familiar with this Cross Platform chat client named “InstantBird”? If not, then probably you have missed some great source of entertainment. Well, now you have a good news. Although it took four years but the final version of InstantBird is here now. InstantBird v1.0 has been released to the public. This release brings better cross-platform support, Windows 7 Jumplist support to quickly change status message, Twitter support and much more. Windows 7 users will appreciate the Aero Glass Effect and find similarities to Firefox 4 Tab styling. InstantBird can now merge contacts; if you talk with the same person across various IM platforms, you can combine a list usernames under one account. InstantBird is now a strong alternative to other multi-messengers, such as, Pidgin, Digsby and Trillian, with support for Facebook chat, Google Talk, AIM, Hotmail, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, IRC, Jabber, etc.

When you launch InstantBird for the first time, it asks you to configure an account. Once an account has been added, you will see Accounts window from where you can add more accounts. To begin adding an account, select one from the list and click Next. You will require entering your account credentials, including the username, password and an alias in the following steps of the Account Wizard, after which you will be able to chat with your configured account. You can login and chat with your friends, configure multiple accounts and get Twitter updates all under one window.

If you are having a conversation with someone across multiple messenger accounts, you can merge that person’s usernames to create a combined list. This feature is called Contacts Merge and is by far the most useful feature since it allows you to remove clutter and clean up the Friends list. Once you add the Twitter account, the Timeline will automatically open showing the latest tweets of people you follow. InstantBird now has native Windows 7 Jumplist support to quickly change your status message. No need to open InstantBird! The conversation tabs styling has been made similar to Firefox 4. The default theme is called Bubbles, however, you can change the default theme from Tools -> Options-> Themes (tab). Similarly, the other tabs have options styled like Firefox 4 which allows enabling tabbed conversations, a log of conversations, changing the theme, proxy setting adjustment, sound notifications, and much more. Don’t be surprised to find striking similarity of InstantBird options, after all InstantBird was helped by the Mozilla team.

Supported networks

First and foremost, InstantBird is an instant messaging client with a wide variety of supported networks, including:

Extensibility

We feel that a user should be able to make their instant messaging client their own: we feel InstantBird can be customized best by giving the user a simple and efficient user interface, and not attempting to include hundreds of bundled options, but allowing the user to customize via the powerful extensibility included in the Mozilla platform. All elements of InstantBird are customizable, from the message theme itself (we've built on the great message style format used in Adium) to the InstantBird theme, user interface and protocols. There are already over 250 add-ons available, here are some of our favorites:

Colorize -- change a buddy's color in a private conversation based on their name

Highlight -- be notified of certain words in a chat as if they were your nickname